Man, does anyone really remember how big a part of our lives Star Wars was growing up, if you grew up in the 70s? I almost feel like it's similar to the Bee Gees...guess you had to be there. I can't even remember what it was like other than remembering it was HUGE, and EVERYONE had Star Wars something or other somewhere....lunch boxes and thermoses (what are those?), T-shirts, action figures, toys, decades of computer games, etc... My buddy had the X-Wing toy, and you pressed on the R2D2 head and the wings expanded into the X...BRILLIANT.

Nice to see some deleted scenes. It's a bit like watching the sausage being made, but it's nice to see a bit of the process now that it's 30 years later.
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Good thing they cut the wampa stuff down. It looked like a guy struggling under a pile of carpet remnants. Definitely would have undermined the sense of threat to Luke in the scenes where the thing catches him.

George didn't write the script for Empire. He came up with the story while two others wrote the script and someone other than George directed. Given the best Star Wars had the least of handiwork, it gives me hope for the new movies.

Given the best Star Wars had the least of [George Lucas'] handiwork, it gives me hope for the new movies.

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Except that the best Star Wars was the original 1977 movie (in its original form, Han shoots first, no CGI, etc.), which was 100% written by George Lucas. That film is a masterpiece. Yes, the prequels were complete and utter crap and almost everything he's done since 1977 is generally awful, but you can't take away the genius of that first movie. He deserves well-earned praise for that one.

A lot of people argue that Empire is the best SW film. I totally disagree. The first one rules forever.

All Star Wars is good in my book -- Lucas never raped my childhood by making new ones. The Wampa scenes were cut because Lucas wasn't happy with the monster suit. In the original cut of the film they didn't end up showing too much of it. And the only shot of its face was done with a hand puppet.

I don't remember where I found it online, but someone posted what was supposed to be the original Leigh Brackett script treatment where the Wampas were much more than just basically an abominable snowman and could freeze things with their touch. I suppose the deleted scenes were a holdover from that original script treatment which Lucas didn't really like.

While Brackett is co-credited with Lawrence Kasdan for the script, she died from cancer before she and Lucas could do any re-writes together. After a couple of re-write attempts on his own Lucas turned it over to Kasdan for the final re-writes. Brackett did a lot of sci-fi short stories back in the 40s/50s, but was probably better known as one of the screenwriters for The Big Sleep and for Rio Bravo.

I say supposedly - I don't know if that was ever proved to be her draft or if it's an internet fake.

As someone who was a bit older when the original Star Wars films hit (almost 15 when the original was released, almost 18 when Empire was released) I still consider Empire to be the best of the films - I got into the Zen/Gaia aspect of Yoda's training of Luke in using the Force as I was reading a lot of that type of ecological sci-fi (Herbert beyond the Dune trilogy, etc.) at that time. The original was also very good - it was purely character archetypes but it was really well done. Lucas built some good bones for the characters, but Empire put the meat on them. Jedi - well, it was so predictable as the close of the story arc (Luke fully claims his birthright by helping his father redeem himself) but the Ewoks were definitely a move to cement the next generation of fans. Kasdan was involved in the Jedi script as well, but I wonder if his involvement was the first segment (the Jabba segment) and the Luke/Vader-Anikan/Emperor segment while Lucas wrote everything else.